Children Of Bodom‘s debut album is one of those releases that have been met with a lot of arguments as to whether it’s good or not. Something Wild is held as a pivotol release in the metal world. Was this release a sign of something good on the horizon, or troubled waters ahead? Well, for many fans of the band, this was one release not to be missed. Many bands have even flat out stolen this band’s signature sound. Surely this means this release is well worth some spare cash, right?

Well, this album does have it’s moments. While the drum work on this album is very well done, causing much of the music to just sound absolutely insane, it doesn’t salvage each and every song. The keyboards on this release are easily the best part, as they really do stand out against the music and add this haunting, almost gothic-era of music feel, such as on “In The Shadows” and “Red Light In My Eyes, Part 2”. Much of the music on here has an over-the-top feel to it, which works fine, but it’s moments like on “Lake Bodom” where the song goes from mid-tempo into a guitar versus piano battle solo from hell that will have you asking “What the…What I miss?”

One of the extreme faults to this release has got to be the gutteral vocals. Thankfully they don’t appear that often, mostly during “Red Light In My Eyes” parts 1 and 2. These vocals, especially at the end of “Red Light In My Eyes, Part 1” when they are meshed together with the higher pitched vocals, just make the tracks laughable. With that mentioned, “In The Shadows” and “Lake Bodom” are the only two other tracks you may tire of. The rest of the album is pretty good, if you can stand the constant musical change ups in speed. “Touch Like Angel Of Death”, for example, is the best song off the album, and is just littered with tempo changes. But, in the case of the two bonus appendages to this release, “Code” (as some refer to it as), which is a brief keyboard instrumental after “Touch Like Angel of Death”, as well as the ten second unlisted silent track commonly refered to as “Bruno The Pig”.

So to sit down and say this is one of the best pieces of metal in history is an overstatement. While much of this album sounds really good, the band seems to enjoy changing up the speed of the song, which only seems to work during keyboard solos, and not actual guitar solos. Something Wild is a rather promising album that shows a band with a great idea that needs to mature their sound.